2003 - A Jarful of Angels (30 page)
Read 2003 - A Jarful of Angels Online
Authors: Babs Horton
Iffy knew she’d gone straight to Hell. Flames were licking up her nostrils, the inside of her head was on fire. She opened her eyes to redness.
The Devil was leaning over her, his glowing red eyes looking into hers. His whiskers brushed against her burning face. Crimson flames were licking upwards behind him. The screams of tormented souls were all around.
She closed her eyes and felt the sweat prickle on her scorched skin, then dropped into darkness again.
Red and yellow fire. Her grancha was the devil.
“All right, little gel? Gave yourself hell of a crack, mun.”
Hell was the kitchen. The flames in the range flickered red and gold. The kettle screamed and danced on the hob.
The fire in her head came from a little brown bottle that Nan held under her nose.
“Let’s get you up to bed, little gel. You had a funny turn. Bit of rest is what you need.”
Grancha carried her through the back parlour. The lid on the biscuit tin lifted, a black hand waved at her. The bleeding heart drip dripped onto the sofa back.
Up the wooden hill she went and soon she floated in the big rocking bed until the sun went down and Carmel Chapel blazed and the Old Bugger hooted low in the graveyard.
They were going to take Fatty away. Iffy was hiding under the kitchen table when she heard Mrs Bunting telling Nan, and Mrs Bunting had heard from Bridgie Thomas and she had got it straight from the horse’s mouth: Father Flaherty. Fatty’s father was signing him over to the church and they were going to put him in the children’s home. It was for his own good.
As soon as she could escape from under the table, Iffy went looking for Fatty. She found him down by the river.
“Fatty! Fatty! I’ve got something to tell you, only don’t say I told you, but I heard them talking.”
“Calm down, Iffy. Heard who talking about what?”
“They’re going to put you in a home!” she said breathlessly.
“Who told you that?”
“Honest injun, Fatty. Mrs Bunting told Nan, and Bridgie heard it from Father Flaherty, so it must be true. They’re going to put you in Bethlehem House.”
“Not on your fuckin’ nelly,” he said.
“But you can’t argue with them,” Iffy said. “They can make you do anything they want.”
Bethlehem House was an orphanage. It was a tall, ugly red-brick house on the far edge of town down past the park. There were nuns at Bethlehem House. The Sisters of Mercy. Fatty’d always said that they looked like black umbrellas stalking up through the town. They wore long black habits and lace-up shoes that squeaked on the floor and they smelled of incense and strong-smelling soap. They never smiled.
“I can come and visit you, though.”
“I’m not going.”
“I could bring you sweets and comics.”
“No!”
“But, they’ll make you, Fatty.”
“No they won’t. I don’t care what they say. They can piss up their legs and play with the steam for all I bloody care,”
He got up and scrabbled up the bank.
“Fatty, where are you going?” She tried to follow him. “Wait, Fatty. Please.”
But there was no stopping him, he ran up past the Big House and didn’t look back once.
Fatty ran and ran, on past the rec. He leapt over the stile, arms pumping, head spinning. When he could run no further he threw himself down in the long grass and sobbed. He wasn’t going to let them take him to the orphanage. If only his mam hadn’t died! Everything had been spoiled. He’d always planned on escaping, getting rich and coming back for his mam.
He’d already thought of running away, he hated being at home with his dad, especially now his mam wasn’t there. There was no way Father Flaherty was going to cart him off to Bethlehem House. He had to get away! There was nothing worth staying for any more, except for Iffy. He didn’t want to leave Iffy Meredith. He couldn’t imagine life without her.
Oh God! He needed to think. He needed to make plans, and quickly, before they came for him.
The sun burned behind the windows of Carmel Chapel as Will stepped into the graveyard. Walking quickly between the rows of graves, he found what he was looking for easily.
Grass had grown over the mound of wet earth he had looked down on that summer day long ago.
No one had erected a stone to her memory. The rotting wooden cross tilted towards the earth. Her name had faded but was still just legible.
ELLEN JENNIFER BEVAN
Underneath her name someone had painted on the words:
AND FLIGHTS OF ANGELS SING THEE TO THY REST
Will began to tremble and he had to lean against the wall of the chapel for support. The words hadn’t been on the cross when he’d visited the grave just after the boy had disappeared.
He knew now without a doubt that these words had been written by the boy. The small ‘e’ was identical to the ‘e’ of Lawrence Bevan’s name written on the hump-backed bridge. Identical to the ‘e’s in the notes written in the encyclopedia.
And that could only mean one thing: the boy had still been alive, still been somewhere around, when Will had been investigating his disappearance!
Will’s head ached but things were falling into some semblance of order.
Fatty Bevan had still been alive after his clothes had been discovered down by the river. But where had he been hiding? Why? What had he been wearing?
Rodwell had said that he only had one set of clothes to his name. If he’d wanted to disappear so badly why would he have left the clothes on the river bank and thus ensured their discovery and the subsequent police enquiry?
Unless he’d wanted them to think he’d drowned?
Will knew that Iffy Meredith hadn’t been telling him the truth, that she’d been hiding something. There was something else about Iffy that he was trying to recall, something he’d seen that day when he’d spoken to her in her grandparents’ house.
Some small detail, apparently insignificant! And yet somehow, if he could only remember what it was, he knew it was important.
There was no sign of Carty Annie. Fatty tip-toed gingerly up to the house and pressed his nose against the filthy window pane. His eyes were sore from crying and his head was thumping but he had to see, to convince himself that he hadn’t imagined it. He peered into the kitchen. He could just make out the dresser and a vague outline of the jars. He screwed up his eyes trying to get a better look.
Then he took a deep breath, turned the door handle and slipped silently inside the house.
It took several minutes for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the kitchen. Then he walked quickly across the room towards the dresser.
He stopped. He felt as though his eyes would pop out of his head. His heart was thumping painfully. He stared at the jars, mesmerised.
Loads of old empty jars.
Except for one.
A jarful of real live angels. They weren’t like angels were supposed to be at all. Not like the ones he’d seen in books. Those ones all had soppy smiles, beautiful shining faces and to fucking good to be true.
Fatty grinned.
“Bloody hell,” he said. He couldn’t take his eyes off the jar. “They’re beautiful and ugly all at the same time.”
He crept closer still.
There were loads of them in the jar. Tiny little angels, all crushed up tight like them fish in a tin with a key. Their pudgy snouts were all squashed up and their twisted lips stuck like pink slugs to the sides of the jar. Their hot breath filled it with steamy clouds. Their eyes held his gaze; bright, shrewd, crafty eyes glaring at him. His hands were shaking uncontrollably as he reached forward and picked up the jar.
Slowly, breathing noisily, he began to twist the lid. Slowly it loosened and came off.
He put the jar back down on the dresser and held his nose. Jesus! The stink was terrible. The stench of sour sweat and stale wee all mixed up with the reek of pickled onions and vinegar.
Now the lid was off the room filled with their noise. He heard the terrible scratching and squeaking sounds of their fingernails scraping against the murky glass of the jar. The awful grinding and gnashing noises of their sharp pearly teeth and the rubbing friction of their torn and tangled wings. Dreadful noises they were, that made his ears weep and his gums ache.
“Calm down for Christ’s sake,” he said.
He steadied the jar with one hand and put his other hand inside it, lifted one angel out and popped it into an empty jar. He screwed on the lid tightly and then he was out of there and legging it down Dancing Duck Lane.
Fatty had made his plans carefully. He’d had it all worked out. He’d made the decision to go and no one was going to stop him. If they thought he was going to live with a bunch of mealy-mouthed old nuns they could think-again.
Iffy was the only person he’d told. He hadn’t said a word to Billy, even though he’d wanted to. He knew he’d miss Billy, he’d miss his silence. Fatty had been shocked that even though Billy couldn’t speak, he had worked it out for himself and somehow knew that Fatty was going away.
He’d brought him a present, an old duffel bag containing a T-shirt, a pair of shorts and even pants and a vest. Fatty’d never had pants before. Best of all, there was a pair of almost new shiny brown sandals that had been recently polished. They had cream-coloured crepe soles and they still had the price on the bottom. Fourteen shillings and sixpence. Fatty’d tried them on and they fitted a treat! Billy had grinned at Fatty, then he’d run off, stopped further down the road, looked back, put up his thumb and raced away.
The sandals would be perfect for all the walking that he was going to have to do over the next couple of weeks.
Fatty had planned to hide away in the pipe and as soon as it was dark he was going to creep out from his hiding place, leg it away down the river and get as far away down the valley as he could that first night.
He knew a couple of safe places he could stay without being discovered. Then, when he reached the sea…
Iffy had promised to get rid of his old clothes. He had no intention of being recognised and brought back. It wasn’t likely that anyone would report him missing. The old man was off on a bender with his mam’s insurance money. There was no one to know he’d run away except Iffy, and by the time anyone had realised, it would be too late!
He was going to leave tonight. Hiding in the pipe, waiting for darkness to fall he heard the sound of voices. Sergeant Rodwell was down on the river bank talking to another man. A plain clothes copper by the look of him. An important-looking man who was holding up Fatty’s shorts and T-shirt. It looked to Fatty as though he was smelling them, like a bloodhound!
Shit! What were his bloody clothes doing down there! What was Iffy playing at? He panicked and crept back into the darkness of the pipe. Just as he stepped into the cover of the bushes in the grounds of the Big House, a strong hand was pushed hard against his mouth and he couldn’t scream even if he’d wanted to…
Will could not sleep. His brain was working overtime and yet to no good purpose. The same old nagging thoughts were rattling around inside his head…
He sat up in bed and looked across the room at the statue. The moonlight glistened on the smooth white stone. Agnes Medlicott had certainly been an extremely talented sculptor. She had captured in stone the very essence of carefree youth. The slender limbs had a subtle vibrancy, the playful tilt of the head, the wrinkling of the pretty nose, a young face turned towards the sun. The soft, sweet, wistful smile.
He couldn’t remember now whether it was the Eskimos who believed that inside every lump of rock there was a statue already carved. That you merely had to chip away at the superfluous rock until you revealed a beautiful discovery deep inside. It was a lovely idea.
He felt as if this case were the same. Chip away for long enough and eventually you would come up with the answer. Only at the moment there seemed to be more questions than answers.
He imagined the boy creeping across the satin smooth lawns of the Big House in the dead of night to replace the head on this statue. Did he stand back and look at her? Did he see, as Will did now, the soft moonlight shining across her young face, a face full of hope. A girl in love.
He felt a strange sensation realising that he and the boy had both gazed upon this face by the light of the moon.
Then he remembered something that had seemed of no relevance before. It set off a whole train of jumbled thoughts.
Elizabeth Tranter had mentioned that Iffy’s nan had said old Mrs Medlicott wasn’t safe around children. Yet Agnes Medlicott had talked to him about her own dead child with such sadness. She had spoken too about all her girls. He’d thought that the statues were all her children. He remembered looking at Agnes Medlicott’s hands…hard, strong, sinewy hands.
Not safe around children.
No one had found the boy’s cricket belt.
Elizabeth Tranter had said that Iffy had seen a skull stuck in the ice. A skull with two teeth missing. What was so significant about that?
Jesus! Gladys Baker had told him they’d found a headless corpse.
Gladys Baker’s friend Esther somebody or other had spent a night fighting off Dr Medlicott in the air-raid shelter.
Sergeant Rodwell had told him there was no point speaking to little Billy Edwardsbecause he was dumb. He’d told him the horrific story of Billy’s older brother’s death. About the brown paper bags and the sandals. The new brown sandals with the price still on the bottom!
Dear God, he’d been a fool. It was staring him in the face!
He threw back the bed covers, dressed quickly and slipped silently down the stairs and out into the moonlit night.
Iffy lay in the big bed. The gas mantle popped and the light grew dim, then bright. She closed her eyes against the dripping shadows of bats.
Outside the town clock bonged twelve o’clock. Midnight. Soon ghosts would start to walk the dark gwlis. Lunatics would come out on the prowl. The moon would rise above the mountain and turn the river to a trickle of silver.